An update from Cupar Development Trust on an innovative and exciting project that’s coming to fruition …

Cupar is about to have new signs! Not road traffic signs, but signs to welcome locals and visitors into the town centre.

There will be three ‘Arrival’ panels in car parks, designed to advise visitors how to find their way around the town:

1. Fluthers – the town’s free car park with more than 200 spaces
2. The Railway Station
3. Bonnygate

There will be three ‘Interpretive’ panels designed to explain – to residents and visitors alike – Cupar’s history and heritage around those three parts of town:

1. The Mercat Cross
2. The Parish Church (below)
3. Burnside

There will also be a replacement panel at the entrance to the Railway Station car park, with a welcome to the Cupar Museum.

The project is a partnership among Cupar Development Trust (CDT), Cupar Heritage, and consultants CMC Associates, who prepared the town’s Interpretive Plan in 2017. Much of the information on the panels is the result of hard labour by the Trustees and Volunteers of Cupar Heritage, while the project has been driven forward by David Kirk, who continued to chair the Interpretive Plan Working Group after retiring from the Board of CDT last December. CDT welcomes readers to its new website.

Work on installing the new signs, a mix of lecterns and vertical panels, is planned to start this month (October 2020), and the work should be complete before Christmas. If the Covid position allows it, and Cupar is able to enjoy some form of Christmas celebration at the Cross in the traditional way, the lectern at the Cross will be gift-wrapped for Santa to present to Gina Logan, Chair of Cupar Community Council.

A Zoom presentation was held on 30 September, welcomed by CDT Chair, Bill Pagan. Dr Mike Spearman of CMC Associates then exhibited the signage and explained the background to the project. Among the guests was the Lord Lyon King of Arms, who commended Cupar as a lively town and congratulated all involved in the Signage project. The Lord Lyon has accepted CDT’s invitation to unveil the Signage, along with other items being celebrated, in June 2021, always subject to the Covid position at the time.

Any readers who would like to catch up with the Signage project can view the Zoom event on YouTube via this linkor by clicking on the embedded link below …

 

The Cupar Signage project has been very timely. It progressed during lockdown, making Cupar ready to show off its retail and service town centre, as well as its history and heritage – both to Fifers and to visitors from further afield – after Covid. The arrival of our Digital Improvement District – CuparNow – is hugely valuable and timely, not least as the new Signage is digitally based, with QR Codes containing links to organisations and activities in the town. CuparNow’s free town centre Wi-Fi will be a valuable resource, making it easy to follow those links.

Each of the panels contains a series of QR Codes (below) – and each codes will lead viewers to a different aspect of Cupar, including Walking Trails, Retail information, Events, CuparNow’s Blog, and a link to the Cupar Museum.

CDT’s ambition is to provide a focus for local collaboration in community development, citizenship, arts and culture, resulting in activities and events which will benefit people throughout the Cupar area regardless of age, ability or background.

 

Thanks for reading!